


Gasping

by VulpesOrion



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Hanahaki Disease, Hank Anderson is Bad at Feelings, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), but screw it, i'm sure this has been done better, two cakes right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VulpesOrion/pseuds/VulpesOrion
Summary: Hank has lived his whole life with hanahaki and barely had any problems. Three weeks after the android revolution, he coughs up his first petal. After some consideration of his options, Hank decides his best choice is to die of hanahaki before Connor realizes that Hank is hopelessly in love with him.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 9
Kudos: 95





	Gasping

**Author's Note:**

> I stepped into this idea like other people step into a bear trap and I have not known peace since. Hopefully now I can rest and work on my other projects.
> 
> A special thank you goes to Ellie, whom I have apparently dragged into this ship. You are the greatest, LE.

Sitting slumped over the toilet, too sick and weak to move, was a familiar position for Hank Anderson. Even the fact that he was in the men’s room of the DPD and not at home or in a bar was familiar. There had been one or two shameful incidents. The rainbow of flowers in the toilet bowl? Those were a fairly recent development.

Life had always had a way of fucking Hank over. Keeping him humble, he used to think when there was still some optimism left in him. Later he just decided that someone, somewhere had it out for him. His marriage was happy, right up until it wasn’t. His promising career? Hamstrung by burgeoning alcoholism. And his son, the light of his life, was ripped away from him just after his sixth birthday. Hank had thought this was the worst life had to offer him. Apparently the universe had one last cruel joke to make at his expense.

After years of hoping and praying for it, now that he had decided to live, Hank Anderson was dying.

His was a rare condition. Something like one in 20,000 according to the statistics. It had been closer to one in 50,000 when he was a kid, so Hank supposed that cases were either on the rise or detection had gotten better. Modern medicine had, however, failed to provide a cure in the forty-odd years since Hank first learned of the disease. Hanahaki, also known as the flowering sickness, was a condition that caused those afflicted to grow flowers in and around their heart and lungs when experiencing unrequited romantic love. It was not contagious, though it was genetically heritable. Hank used to lay awake at night worrying that someday his son would start coughing. He had ultimately never had the chance to find out.

For his own part, hanahaki had never been a major burden for Hank. A few seeds in middle and high school, petals sprinkled here and there around his life, and once – only once – full-blown flowers for a girl that Hank had spent nearly two months mooning over in college. Good friends, good beer, and a couple of good lays had seen him through it. After getting married, Hank had assumed that hanahaki would not be an issue because he was determined to be a good and faithful husband. After Cole was gone, Hank had _known_ that it would not be an issue because he was certain that his heart had died along with his son. Then that damn android had to come along and refuse to take no for an answer. Now, for the first time in his life, Hank was really learning what it meant to have hanahaki disease.

Hank gagged and spat out one last petal. It joined the other flowers in the bowl, their purple, pink, and white blossoms all streaked with Hank’s blood. The hyacinths were new, he noted dully. Hank was no expert, but he somehow thought that having progressed to three distinct species of flowers was probably a bad sign. That, and the fact that he had just regurgitated a veritable bouquet and already he could feel his breath starting to wheeze as new flowers started to take their place. Hank closed his eyes and rested his head against the toilet seat, too desperate for a cool touch on his brow to care much about hygiene. Any minute now, Connor would come looking for him. And Hank had almost made it, too.

The first petal had come three weeks after the android revolution. Connor was giving Hank a tour of his new apartment. Well, “tour” was perhaps a generous term. The whole thing was roughly the size of a postage stamp, but Connor was over the moon about it. For now, the decorations were fairly spartan, but already touches of the android’s personality were starting to shine through. Blue throw pillows were artfully arranged on the couch (Connor’s favorite color), a fish tank happily bubbled away against one wall, and Connor was now showing Hank the monogrammed bowls that he had ordered online for Sumo. “In case he ever wants to visit,” Connor was saying, as if Sumo might one day wake up from an afternoon nap and say to Hank “Hey, why don’t we swing by Connor’s for dinner?” Hank could not fight back a grin as he watched Connor’s excited face, picturing the apartment slowly filling up as his partner pieced together his identity beyond what he had been programmed to be. Hank’s heart warmed in his chest… and a tickle registered in the back of his throat.

Hank turned away to cough into his hand and then stared at the single pink petal. Well, shit.

“Are you alright, Lieutenant?” Connor asked.

“Fine,” Hank said, hastily pocketing the petal before Connor could start using any of that fancy analysis software. He would deal with this later.

And by deal with it, Hank meant bury it. Connor was the best thing in Hank’s life right now. After so long shutting out the world, his heart was unprepared for this sudden rush of affection. Clearly somewhere along the line, Hank had simply gotten his wires crossed ( _ha ha_ ) and mistaken friendship for romantic love. A few weeks, tops, and stupid flowers would get the message. In the meantime, Hank was an expert at suppressing unwanted emotions.

If not for the hanahaki, Hank thought his denial plan would have worked rather nicely. Instead, Hank found himself trapped in a feedback loop of flora. The more the petals came, the more Hank was forced to acknowledge how much he _liked_ Connor. The more he realized his burgeoning fondness, the worse the petals got.

Connor, fighting with that one lock of hair that would never stay in place. _Cough._ Making a weird noise in the back of his throat because he had still not quite gotten the hang of laughing. _Cough._ Snarking at Detective Reed in a tone so deadpan it was nearly impossible to tell if he was joking. _Cough._ Casually mentioning to Hank a new low-impact exercise regimen that Connor felt would be beneficial to his health. _Cough, cough, cough._

 _Oh fuck,_ Hank thought not even a fortnight after that first petal. Connor was teaching Sumo bad habits, letting the dog lay back on the couch as Connor lavished him in belly rubs and gazed down at him with what could only be described as “heart-eyes”. _Oh fuck, I love him._ No sooner than this thought had occurred to him than Hank darted into the kitchen and set the sink running so that Connor would not hear him retch up a pink flower the size of his palm. Hank stuffed it into the garbage disposal and scrubbed a handful of water over his mouth to conceal any traces from Connor’s scanners.

So, the flowers weren’t a mistake. That seriously reduced Hank’s options. Well, actually, it narrowed them down to one. Forgetting his feelings for Connor was not going to happen. Not when Connor was his partner at work, not when they had been so much together, not when he had literally been engineered to be annoyingly fucking attractive. Confessing to Connor was also right out. Hank would not put that burden on him. And surgery? Beyond effectively forcing him into retirement if it came out that Hank had hanahaki, removing those flowers would take away his feelings for Connor, too. Hank could never. He would rather… well, die. So Hank started making preparations.

Getting his will in order was the first thing. His wishes were extremely simple. Everything of Hank’s belonged to Connor already, whether the android knew it or not. He made sure all the important documents were somewhere that they could be easily found. He wrote up letters of recommendation for everyone in the department that might need it in the near future; Hank’s record was far from spotless, but he hoped that being dead might lend them a little more weight. He had some vague plans about trying to clean out his junk before dying but they fell apart pretty quickly as his symptoms got worse. Hank was sorry to stick Connor with the mess, but he was sure that his partner would handle it with the same efficiency that he handled every task in his life. _Cough, cough._

As dying went, smothering on feelings for the one person that made life worth living seemed like as good a way to go as any, if an ironic one. It was still a bitch, though, and dying by this particular method had the unfortunate side effect of ruining just about every other vice. Smoking with his already-weakened lungs was just painful. Eating junk food? Nope, every time he so much as looked at a burger, Hank could almost hear a disapproving lecture from Connor about saturated fats and sodium levels. Drinking brought up half-baked fantasies about confessing everything to Connor and somehow miraculously having his feelings returned, about kissing Connor and asking him to move in and living some stupidly domestic life just the three of them and... Yeah, no. As Hank vomited up a vile mixture of flowers and whiskey, he decided drinking was definitely off the table. Hell, Hank couldn’t even jerk off without becoming a gasping mess literally choking on his own longing. If that didn’t qualify as rock bottom, Hank wasn’t sure what did.

But the worst of it was what it did to Connor. Or, rather, what it made Hank do to Connor. Hank had made the android promise to stop doing his “creepy-ass scans'' on him shortly after the revolution, but Hank also knew that Connor had a disobedient streak so large that even CyberLife’s most stringent programming could not keep him in check. Even if Connor kept his word, eventually he would not need to be an advanced prototype to notice that something was wrong with Hank. The best that Hank could hope to do was keep Connor away from all of this until it was too late.

So Hank shut Connor out. He was good at it, too. Years of practice. Hank picked fights about every little thing. He stopped inviting Connor over to his house. He made excuses when Connor asked him to do something – flimsy excuses that were obviously lies, and all the more effective for it. He pretended not to notice Connor’s hurt and confusion at his first and closest friend suddenly pushing him away. Maybe thinking Hank Anderson was an asshole would help Connor move on once Hank finally kicked it. Scratch that – Hank Anderson _was_ an asshole. A dumb motherfucking asshole who could not keep his heart to himself and ruined everything. Hank deserved what he was getting. Connor deserved more, and the sooner Hank was gone, the better off Connor would be.

But that plan might well be shot to shit now, because Hank had fucked up big time. He and Connor had made a major collar and spirits in the bullpen were high. Hank let himself slip, let himself forget the master plan of “avoid Connor until you die” and for just a second it felt like old times again. Hank had put his hand on Connor’s shoulder and given it a little affectionate squeeze and Connor, goddamn him, had given him _that_ smile. Not his “advanced social relations program” smile, that lopsided one that Hank had first seen outside of Chicken Feed the morning after the revolution. The one that made Hank’s heart beat fast and ignited a desire to press his lips to the corner of Connor’s mouth. Hank had time to think _Oh, shit_ before he was dashing to the bathroom as flowers fought their way up his throat.

And there Hank sat now, his chest burning and his breath coming in short, sharp gasps as he waited for the inevitable. He did not open his eyes as the door to the men’s restroom opened and there was the crisp _click-click-click_ of dress shoes on the tile floor, steps too even to be anyone human. The steps halted outside of Hank’s stall and there were five solid seconds of silence before Connor spoke.

“You have hanahaki.”

Hank said nothing. He couldn’t exactly deny it while sitting next to a toilet full of flowers.

Another short pause. “This isn’t in any of your medical records,” Connor said at last.

Hank wheezed out a startled noise that might have been a laugh if his chest did not hurt so damn much. Of course Connor had read his medical records. “Never officially diagnosed,” he mumbled, his raw throat making his voice come out a hoarse rasp. “Never saw a reason to disclose it. Nobody’s fucking business.”

Silence again, then Connor announced, “An ambulance is on the way.”

Hank’s eyes snapped open. “What? No.” He tried to get up but slid back down immediately, the room swimming before his eyes as his oxygen-starved brain tried to get a handle on the situation. Now he could see Connor in front of the open stall door, staring down at Hank with his LED cycling _yellow-red-yellow_. He moved to try to help Hank up, but Hank jerked away. “Don’t touch me.” The last thing he needed was to have a second attack right now and for Connor to put together the pieces.

Connor drew away as if burned, his LED settling on a steady red. “You’re very ill, Hank. You need medical attention,” he said, his voice slipping into that soothing tone he used to try to talk down perps.

“Medical attention can’t do dick for me,” Hank snarled. “Look it up.” Well, Hank supposed, they could probably take him to the hospital and put him on oxygen and some drugs to make the pain go away. Drugs sounded real nice just about now.

Hank watched Connor’s LED cycle to yellow as he did, in fact, look it up. “There are options…” he began in that same infuriatingly calm voice.

“No. There aren’t,” Hank said bluntly. “I’m not doing… that.”

Connor’s expression twitched, his calm negotiator façade slipping ever so slightly. “Please, be logical, Hank. You can’t do this to yourself, you have to…”

“I don’t have to do anything except pay taxes and die.” Hank chuckled at his own gallows humor. “Call off the fucking ambulance.”

Connor’s expression flickered again. “That isn’t funny,” he snapped. “I’ll cancel the ambulance, but I’m taking you to the hospital myself. I’ll call ahead on the way so they can start prepping an OR for you.”

Hank’s humor evaporated. “No,” he growled.

Connor narrowed his eyes. “If you do not get up, Lieutenant, I swear that I will carry you out of here.”

“Yeah? And when I get to the hospital, I will make sure to tell them that they do _not_ have my consent for treatment of any kind. I’ll yell my fucking head off.”

The mask fell away entirely. Connor stood before him, his hands balled into fists, his LED blaring _redredred_ and shaking from what seemed to be suppressed fury. “ _Why,_ Hank?” he demanded, and Hank’s heart just about broke in two at the pain in his partner’s voice. "I know that you have experienced suicidal ideation in the past, but -"

"No. _No_ ," Hank cut across him sharply. "That's not why I'm not having the surgery, Con. I don't want to lose... this." He put a hand on his aching chest. "I never thought I'd have this again. Never thought I could... feel like this again."

Something twisted in Connor’s expression and he turned on his heel, stalking over to mirrors and leaning his hands on the rim of the sinks. “Who is it?” he asked, his head bowed.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I strongly disagree with that statement.” Connor was falling back into a stilted, formal speech pattern, a sure sign that the android was feeling overwhelmed. “This person is clearly important to you, more important than your career, more important than your dog, more important than your p-partner…” Connor’s vocal modulation hitched oddly on this last word. "And yet, here you are, in this state. I cannot imagine how someone could both be worth this level of pain but also not return your l-love." Again, Connor's audio processor stuttered, a hiss of static making its way into his words. "The only logical conclusion is that you have not expressed your feelings for this person."

Connor's words were cutting a little too close for comfort. Hank needed to get out of here before he slipped up. Slowly, painfully, he struggled to his feet, then sagged against the bathroom stall to catch his breath. "What if you're wrong, Connor?" he rasped, trying to muddy the waters while he recovered. "What if I’ve told them and they just don't feel the same way?"

"Then I will _make_ them love you," Connor said fiercely. "I will make them see that you are kind, and handsome, and wonderful, and intelligent, and that anybody would be _lucky_ -" There was a sharp crack as the sink rim cracked under Connor's hands.

"Connor..." Hank's heart throbbed in his chest in exquisite agony. This, this was precisely why Hank couldn't tell him. Connor would blame himself for not being able to love Hank in a romantic manner. "Connor, I know you're new at this, but that isn't how it works. You can't just turn it on and off... obviously." He gave a bitter little laugh. "This is nobody's fault, Con. Sometimes it just happens. And like I said, everyone's gotta die of something."

" _Well I don't want you to die at all!"_ Connor shouted, his voice echoing off the bathroom walls. He spun around to face Hank, desperation and despair etched all over his face. “There is so much that we still need to do.”

“You can do everything you want to do without me, Con,” Hank said, giving his partner a sad little smile. “Don’t need an old man like me dragging you down.”

The red at Connor’s temple grew brighter. “You don’t understand. I deviated because I wanted to be alive. I came back because I wanted to live with _you._ My partner, my friend, my… What about Thanksgiving, Hank? We didn’t get to celebrate this year with everything going on, but you said that next year, we could spend it together. And Christmas… I know you were busy this year, but I had hoped…” Connor shook his head, clenching and unclenching his hands in that way that he did when he wanted his quarter to ground him. Hank felt a stab of guilt as he was reminded of how he had avoided Connor on Christmas. “It’s been too cold to take Sumo to the dog park,” Connor continued. “I want to see the spring with you, Hank, and then watch the trees change in the fall. I want to spend the 4th of July with you, and your birthday, and… and Flag Day!”

Any notions of escape that Hank had been entertaining were out the window. Right now it was all he could do not to slide down the bathroom stall. Every word that Connor said was a knife in his chest. Hank swore he could _feel_ the blooms opening. “F-flag Day?” he wheezed, unable to help himself. “What, you got big plans for that or something?”

“No, Hank, I do not have plans for Flag Day,” Connor said. “I think it is a stupid, pointless holiday, and I anticipate that I will do nothing at all to commemorate it and that it will be a normal Tuesday, but it will be a Tuesday that I want to spend with you, Hank. Not because it is a holiday but just because it’s Tuesday and you are you and I - _Hank!_ ”

Connor broke off as Hank started to cough, moving forward to place his hands on Hank’s shoulders, which only made him convulse harder. Hank did not have the strength to pull away - in fact, were it not for Connor’s steadying hands, he was quite sure he would have crumpled to the floor. “Breathe, Hank,” Connor’s voice was saying but Hank could not breathe, he could not, because Connor’s hands were on him and his sweet voice was in his ear and his words were so lovely and so, so close to what Hank wanted more than anything else and Hank loved him so goddamn much. Hank was not sure how long the episode lasted, but he did think he lost consciousness for a few seconds because the next thing he remembered, Connor was shaking him and saying his name over and over.

“I’m okay,” Hank gasped out, because it hurt him to hear Connor so afraid and because Connor’s touch was sending warm zings through his body that must be doing a real number on his flower cluster. “You can let go now.”

Connor withdrew slowly, clearly watching Hank for signs of imminent collapse. Another coughing fit racked Hank’s frame, but he held up a hand to stop Connor from grabbing him again. This was not his first rodeo. Sure enough, after retching up a single daisy into his hand, the fit abated. Hank leaned his head back against the stall, blinking away the dark spots in his vision.

“Hank… _please._ ” Hank had never heard Connor sound so desperate, so defeated.

Hank gave an exhausted little sigh and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Con,” he whispered. And he _was_ sorry. Sorry that he was putting Connor through this, sorry that he could not give the android everything he wanted, sorry that he wasn’t the friend that Connor deserved. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

“What if... you could resolve your feelings by moving past them?”

“What?” Hank raised his head to look at Connor a little blearily. His LED was back to cycling a rapid yellow as the android preconstructed dozens if not hundreds of scenarios. Hank wondered how many of those involved him being knocked unconscious and dragged to the hospital. 

“I said, what if you could resolve your feelings by moving past them? What if you could ‘get over’ it?”

Maybe it was the oxygen-deprivation going to his head, but Hank had to fight the insane urge to _giggle_ at the notion of ever being able to forget how Connor made him feel. “Yeah that’s uh… that’s not gonna happen,” he muttered.

“How do you know?” The LED stopped cycling and Connor shot him a glare that clearly translated to ‘I’m trying to find a solution, work with me’. “People fall in and out of love all the time. You could find someone else.”

Hank snorted. “Yeah? And who would that be? I can’t say people are exactly lining up around the block to get with an ugly, used-up alcoholic with more baggage than a freight train.”

“Don’t-!” Connor began sharply, then took a deep (unnecessary) breath and began again. “Don’t sell yourself short, Hank. I meant what I said earlier. Anyone would be lucky to be someone you love. As for who…” For once, Connor broke his usual intense eye contact, casting a glance down at his shoes where the remains of Hank’s latest flower episode lay scattered. “Well, I would certainly volunteer.”

Hank. Was going. To die. Forget hanahaki. Connor was going to take him out with a heart attack here and now. “Y-you?” Hank managed.

Connor looked back at him now, pinning him with those warm brown eyes. “I know that we are not as close as we once were, and that you’ve never shown any romantic interest in me in the past, but your pupil dilation and body temperature suggest that you are at least physically attracted to me, and we get along very well. My research shows that this is a solid foundation for romantic relationships.”

Hank could not find the words to describe the level of emotional whiplash he was experiencing right now. His thoughts were jammed somewhere between _‘He knew?!’_ and _‘I fucking knew he was still scanning me’_ , and in the confusion somehow his mouth went rogue. “And what happens if it happens again, Connor?” it croaked out. “What if I’m with you and… And my hanahaki flares up again?” He could not say it, even as a hypothetical.

Connor’s LED flickered and for just a second Hank almost thought he looked… nervous? “Your condition would not be a problem if you were with me.”

“What, because you’re an android? I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.” Really fucking positive, as a matter of fact.

“No.” There was no mistaking it now. Connor was definitely nervous. “Hanahaki disease only affects those experiencing unrequited romantic love. If you were… with me… that would not be a problem, because I already…” Connor trailed off, his eyes searching Hank’s face with something dangerously like hope.

This was a dream. Hank had passed out and he was dreaming. Hell, maybe he had died and somehow managed to end up in heaven despite all the shit he had pulled in life. That was the only explanation he had, because no way could Connor be saying that he…

“Connor…” Hank said weakly, but the words died in his throat. Even now, with Connor as good as confessing his love for him, Hank Anderson was still too much of a coward. Instead, Hank gestured for his hand. A small crease of confusion gathered between Connor’s brows, but he held it out. Hank reached out, his hands trembling. He placed the single daisy in Connor’s palm, then folded Connor’s fingers around it, willing him to understand.

“This… is… for me…?” Connor said, his words coming slowly but his LED spinning so rapidly that Hank could swear he heard some fans kick up from somewhere inside of him. Hank nodded, his throat too tight to speak. Connor glanced down at the flowers at their feet and then back at Hank’s face, an unspoken question in his eyes. Hank swallowed hard and nodded again.

It was like watching the sun come up after an endless night. The last of the grief and hurt melted out of Connor’s expression. His LED stopped cycling and blinked to a steady blue, and he was staring with such open adoration and joy that Hank half-expected his chest to rip itself apart with the surge of love that he felt for his partner. But there was no pain, only lightness and warmth as Connor drew closer, reaching out a hand to press it over Hank’s pounding heart. “Hank…” he breathed. “Hank, I’m going to kiss you now.”

Hank did not bother holding back a little laugh as the android leaned in. It was all so very Connor. From his statement of the obvious to the way that his lips did not _quite_ have the same give as a human, from the slightly antiseptic taste to his probing tongue that Hank was almost certain he was using to take a sample of the inside of Hank’s mouth. It was clumsy, their teeth clacked together, and Connor did not let up until Hank gently pushed Connor’s shoulders to let him know that he needed to come up for air. It was Connor. It was perfect.

Hank drew away and breathed in deeply.

**Author's Note:**

> Hank's flowers:  
> Camellia: admiration, perfection, good luck, a gift for a man  
> Daisy: Innocence, loyal love, I'll never tell  
> Purple hyacinth: I am sorry, please forgive me
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! If you have time, please leave kudos and/or drop me a comment. I am addicted to validation and I cannot function without it.


End file.
